Dubai businessman converts Cadillac Escalade into a luxury mobile office

Chris Elley who has an office in his car gets driven around the town while working in Dubai . Satish Kumar / The National

DUBAI // For the busy executive, the most valuable commodity - aside from money - is time, with minutes or hours spent commuting simply a waste. However, one Dubai businessman has decided to take matters into his own hands by converting his car into a luxury mobile office.

From the back seats of his Cadillac Escalade, Chris Elley is able to use the time he would usually spend behind the wheel developing his IT business.

He is driven around by a hired chauffeur, who sits in the front of the car, which is partitioned by a screen that doubles as an oversized iMac monitor connected to a wireless keyboard in the back.

If Mr Elley wants to speak to the driver, he picks up a phone that links the back of the car with the front.

“It is a little ostentatious,” he admits. “But sometimes you just need some privacy.”

Mr Elley, 34 from Essex, UK, jointly runs an IT company called WS Media, which runs websites like bored.com that have uncomplicated online games.

He has an office in Gold and Diamond Park, but often has to travel across the city for meetings. He decided to invest in the Dh550,000 modified 4x4 because he “was sick of wasting time in traffic”.

“I was just browsing online and I saw it,” he said. “I thought it would just be kind of cool not having to drive. We spend so much time driving around we thought it would be easier just sitting here and relaxing than getting stressed out on the roads.”

Mr Elley said he spends around 30 per cent of his working life in the car now, when previously he would have spent the same amount of time simply stuck in traffic.

“There’s always little errands you need to do,” he said. “You end up losing days. If you think about all the time you spend driving, you could be working instead.”

The car is filled with quirky accessories. There’s a chiller for drinks, reading lights, a subwoofer in the back, fold out desk tables. The seats are also massage chairs and there is mood lighting for when meeting guests.

“It hasn’t got absolutely everything, but it’s got everything you need,” said Mr Elley.

As far as he is aware, he is the only person to own a car of this type in Dubai. The dealership he bought it from, Deals on Wheels, did not immediately have access to sales figures.

One of the perks of having such a unique car was that it was always something of a curiosity to potential clients. “It never fails to leave an impression on people,” said Mr Elley.

He said the operating costs of the vehicle were not that high.

“Everyone knows how much a driver costs - not that much,” he said. “It uses a little more gas than a regular Escalade, but gas is so cheap here.

“Dubai is probably the only place in the world where you could affordably drive something like this around.”

However there are disadvantages to running such a quixotic vehicle. Just five months after buying it new, the iMac screen stopped working, along with the radio.

Mr Elley has spent the last month trying to find someone who has the niche technical knowledge to be able to fix it.

“Because it’s so unique, there’s very few people who know how it operates and can fix it,” he said. “Once we find someone it will be okay, but for now I’m just using my laptop instead.”

Mr Elley said he had not taken the time to calculate the savings in terms of increased productivity, partly because he doesn’t have a boss to justify the purchase to and partly because it was a secondary concern.

“At the end of the day, it’s just a boy’s toy,” he said.